Save Your Soul
by Beautiful Shiny People
Summary: "So we pray to as many different Gods as there are flowers/ But we call religion our friend/ We're so worried about saving our souls/ Afraid that God will take His toll/ That we forget to begin" Dean/Castiel AU


_People living their lives for you on TV_  
><em>They say they're better than you and you agree<em>

They travel around the country, listening to old rock on cracked tapes while the smell of fast food is always prevalent on the old leather seats. Castiel stares out the passenger window while the other occupants of the highway pass by them, ignoring the black muscle car screaming past. Dean taps his hand on the steering wheel one time with the music, blankly staring out of the windshield, mouthing the lyrics.

Blue eyes glance out of the corner of his eye at the man he ran away from home with, feeling affection and dislike swell under his heart. He slides his skinny hand onto the driver's jean clad leg, watching as Dean glances in his direction. A rare smile perks the edges of Castiel lips, and he gives a brief squeeze to the leg before taking his hand away to rest in his own lap.

_He says, "Hold my calls" from behind those cold big walls._  
><em>The Boss says, "Come here boy. There ain't nothin' for free."<em>  
><em>Another doctor's bill, a lawyer's bill,<em>  
><em>Another cute cheap thrill<em>

He stares blankly up at the stucco ceiling as another stranger pounds into him; Castiel feels the sweat between their bodies, but his mind is else where while the man huffs and puffs. Dean is in another room with another customer, a busty woman who flirted loudly with him while they were at the bar scouting for possible Johns/Janes. He can hear their coupling because the woman is a screamer, and he thinks that he may find marks on Dean when they lay down together later.

"You...really are..." The man puffs, a chubby hand cupping the side of Castiel's unshaven cheek. "A-an angel..." Blue eyes snap up to meet his client's; soft outrage pools in Castiel's gut because _only_ Dean is allowed to call him that.

_You know you love him if you put him in your will but..._

"How much did you make?" They're sitting naked on their motel bed, money spread over the rumpled sheets. Castiel leans against Dean, cigarette dangling precariously from between chapped lips. The room smells of sex, smoke and spilled beer. It's an unpleasant combination of smells, but it's one that they've both grown to recognize as their own brand of odour.

"Fifteen hundred in the last week." Castiel lights his cigarette, pulling the toxic smoke into his lungs until he releases it with a wheezing exhale. Dean scoops up their earnings and puts them in his cracked leather wallet. Fingers pluck the cigarette from Castiel's mouth, and blue eyes watch as the other male takes a drag.

He wants to ask how it came to this, but the words die on his tongue when Dean crushes their mouths together.

_Who will save your souls when it comes to the flowers now_  
><em>Who will save your souls after all the lies that you told, boy <em>  
><em>Who will save your souls if you won't save your own?<em>

They're once more on the road, the Impala smoothly gliding over America's interstates. Metallica pounds from the car's speakers, and Castiel tunes out the beats while he stares out the window. He mulls over how he and Dean came to be, rolling a chewed piece of spearmint gum in his mouth.

A preacher's brother corrupted by the town's 'bad boy'. _How terribly and wonderfully cliche._ Castiel thinks with a small smile, winding the piece of gum around his finger. His eldest brother and legal guardian, Michael, swiftly kicked him out of his home when he found out that he and Dean were involved.

Castiel remembers Dean meeting him in the park, car packed with things and a cigarette and sympathetic kiss waiting. They drove out of Lawrence with out looking back.

_we pray to as many different gods as there are flowers_  
><em>But we call religion our friend<em>  
><em>We're so worried about saving our souls <em>  
><em>Afraid that God will take his toll<em>  
><em>That we forget to begin<em>

There are times that he still prays. He silently thanks God that he found Dean because no one knows him better than the other young man. He thanks God that they at least have something of a roof over their heads when they can't find a place to stay the night. He prays softly when he and Dean are lying in a heap of tangled and sweaty limbs, fingers trailing over the young man's scarred back. It's times like these that he knows God still loves him.

There are times when he damns God and shoves his religious upbringing to the back of his mind. Castiel curses harshly, throws things when he's drunk and Dean's out with a client. He throws the motel's dense plastic phone through the dirty window and falls into a pile, choking on his sobs.

His depression causes him to snap at Dean when the young man walks through the motel doorway. He watches as foggy green eyes glance at the hole made by the telephone. Dean sighs roughly, going down on his knees to be eye level with Castiel, his calloused hands going on either side of the sobbing man's oval face. It's times like this that Castiel can barely feel God and truly believes that He is dead.

_Some are walking, some are talking, some are stalking their kill_  
><em>Got social security, but that it doesn't pay your bills<em>  
><em>There are addictions to feed and there are mouths to pay<em>

They always work out of a bar, preferring to have a stiff drink before anything happens. They don't stand by each other, but Castiel easily picks out Dean from the crowd. He watches with some sort of bizarre pride as his companion walks out with a beautiful woman. He feels eyes on him and turns, an awkward smile that he knows is attractive to some people on his mouth.

A man offers him a drink and they chat for a while; Castiel laughs easily at the man's lame jokes and finally he's taking his client for the night to his motel room.

_So you bargain with the Devil, say you're o.k. for today_

He blinks past the pain, head pounding and back burning. His hearing is muffled, and Castiel is pretty sure that's not a good sign. His vision swims lightly, and he can see bare feet pacing back and forth. He opens his mouth and makes a soft sort of gurgling noise, and Dean suddenly comes into his vision, expression stricken with a phone attached to his ear.

His voice is so muffled that Castiel can't make out any of the words the young man is spewing. He nods and tries to move, but a soft look from Dean makes him sink back down onto the floor.

The ambulance arrives in the next fifteen minutes, and Castiel feels delirious that he starts thinking that he's an angel of the Lord and needs to protect Dean. His companion speaks with the paramedics, but he can't hear anything. His vision swims and black dots appear before his eyes. His mouth is tacky feeling and he's lifted into the ambulance carefully. Dean climbs in after him, and Castiel's eyes lock with his.

He's brought to the local hospital, and after blacking out for a few minutes (though in actuality, it was a few hours) Castiel finds himself propped up on one of the uncomfortable beds, grainy sheets clenched in his hands. He blinks owlishly and sweeps his eyes over the room. It reminds him of when he had gotten his appendix taken out when he was six, and his father came to visit him everyday to read him the same story over and over again. It's a memory that makes him smile.

His back burns as he shifts, and Castiel wonders what that man, Luc, did to him the night previous. He swallows and notices the IV drip connected to his arm, hear the steady beep of the heart monitor in this sterile room. He feels too clean, and that causes his fingers to itch.

A nurse checks up on him and lets out a gasp of surprise when his blue eyes meet hers. She holds her clipboard to her chest and relaxes, giving him a small smile and a pat to the back of his hand. Castiel stares at the space between her eye and eyebrow until she comes closer to take care of the bandages wrapped around his torso.

She fills the air with talk, telling him that he recovered quickly for someone who was just given a blood transfusion, which causes his dark brows to furrow. He licks his lips and asks, rather gravely, what happened to him.

The nurse is quiet for a moment before she looks at him with sympathetic eyes. Her cool gloved fingers leave his back and she goes to fetch two mirrors in order to see the damage done to his back.

His eyes widen as he sees the crudely cut angel wings tearing down his flesh. He feels himself gag and he wrenches his gaze from the pink puckered flesh. The nurse pulls away the mirrors, an expression of shame washing over her face. She apologizes profusely while wrapping starchy white bandages over the monstrosity.

He sucks in a breath and looks up at her as she prepares to leave. "Miss..." The nurse turns, her brows furrowed and one hand fiddling with a hospital issued beeper. "Was anyone with me when I came in?"

The nurse blinks in confusion and watches as his expression crumbles. "No, I'm sorry." Castiel all of a sudden feels like a terrible experiment.

_You say that you love them, take their money and run_  
><em>Say, "it's been swell, sweetheart, but it was just one of those things<em>  
><em>Those flings, those strings you've got to cut,<em>  
><em>So get out on the streets, girls, and bust your butts"<em>

He's living with his estranged brother Gabriel on the California coast as a minimum-wage earning librarian. His brother is strange and oddly hyper, something that Castiel finds himself growing to love everyday.

He's seeing a man named Balthazar who buys him lunch everyday and smiles when Castiel attempts to be funny. It's a nice, easy relationship that is somewhat static and verging on boring, but it's something that Castiel needs.

He tells himself that living here is nice, that he's deserved it, doesn't crave chapped lips on his own and the leather of a sixties muscle car interior against his back.

Locking up the bookstore for the afternoon, Castiel stares at his reflection in the window. He moves his torso to test the pull of the slowly healing skin on his back, liking that the deep gashes have smoothed over into scars that he knows won't go away. Briefly he wonders what Balthazar would say to them, but remembers that he doesn't let anyone see him nude. (Save for Gabriel because getting a moment alone in the bath is something that doesn't happen often.)

Castiel turns and begins walking the direction of Gabriel's Sweets Shoppe, humming tunelessly to himself while twirling the keys of his bookstore around his finger.

He knows that he'll always have some sort of wanderlust stirring in his blood, and there will always be scars, physical and emotional that he'll always carry around. But he's grown to accept that this is the life he was given, and his second chance to be with a man who may actually grow to love him.

He's even begun to pray again.

()()

_Lame ending is lame, but I hope you all liked it. Song is "Who Will Save your Soul" by Jewel for those that don't know. This is my first Supernatural fic, so I would enjoy some pointers on how to get Cas' bloody character down! haha _

_Anyway, please review if you liked it!_


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